Selected Works

Moshe Elimelech has long worked with the formal language of geometric abstraction. His art has ranged in style from kinetic to fantastical – from alterable designs in two and three dimensions, that is, to stylized watercolors enlivened with whimsical forms and figures. In his recent work Elimelech has added an aspect of illusion to his geometric variations, so that where once he was composing on flat spaces, he now suggests recessional space. His paintings have become elaborations on room elevations, cubes floating in air, and other frameworks for beautiful and impossible objects. In these newer works Elimelech conflates the relational compositions of European abstraction with the perceptual challenges of California light-and-space art. The approach is at once beautiful – it makes full use of Elimelech’s vivid palette – and entertaining, building an abstract world around seemingly concrete structures, albeit structures whose parameters change in the blink of an eye. The retinal pleasures and challenging conundra provided by Op Art are conveyed once more in Elimelech’s work, asserting that the 1960s movement was no mere fad. A committed neo-modernist, Moshe Elimelech has gone fully neo-Op, with striking results.